#Which CD-ROM to buy?
7 messages in this thread
I'm thinking about buying a CD-ROM, but know very little about what brand to
get, or what an acceptable speed is. I have a 486DX33 with a SVGA monitor but
only 512k on the video card. From what I can gather, I guess getting a sound
card at the same time as the drive is the way to go. My general philosophy is
to spend a little more up front and get a good product instead of settling for
something that just gets me by. Does anybody have any advise to a relative
novice? Thanks to anyone who replies.
Erik B.
Erik, I had an experience with a CD-ROM drive that led me to make an
important recommendation. Whatever drive you choose, make sure the store
promises and guarantees that if it will not work properly with your PC, you can
immediately return it for a refund. I make this recommendation because there's
no way you can tell in advance whether a drive will work, regardless of the
magazine reviews and "expert" opinions.
Last year, I purchased one of the low-cost Mitsumi LU002 drives. At
first, I was dissatisfied with its performance. I got dozens of "CDR101: Drive
not ready" error messages, and the drive transferred data at no better than 120
KB/second or so. Inquiries to Mitsumi and help messages on this forum produced
no results.
Then, I switched motherboards, using the same 33-MHz 386 CPU, memory
chips and expansion cards from the previous system board. Suddenly, the Mitsumi
turned into a competent performer, transferring data at the 150 KB/second MPC
standard. Multimedia programs which had stuttered now flowed and worked
properly.
Why did that happen? What factor in the motherboard change improved the
Mitsumi's performance? No one knows, especially in this forum. I've had a
standing question for a couple of weeks (actually two, since I'm still trying
to find why the drive would fail to read files on two discs I recently tried)
on the change in the Mitsumi, and I've received zero responses.
Obviously, even the experts are stumped when it comes to CD-ROM
installation and performance. That why I can't overemphasize buying your drive
from a place that will allow a return and refund in case it doesn't work
properly in your RC.
Kevin,
If the problem went away when you switched motherboards, the problem was in the
motherboard, not the CD interface card or the drive. A friend had a system that
was a DOG, after numerous tests on the motherboard, the shop finally realized
the TURBO switch was bad, the system was always running at 16Mhz.
Since you swapped motherboards but kept everything else, I would assume that
you were having problems with things other than the CD.
It's been unclear in your messages if you still have problems with 2 discs?
what are they?
Glen
Glen, I already figured out that the motherboard change improved the
performance of my Mitsumi CD-ROM drive, since the system board was the only
major component I changed. What I'm curious to find is -why- the motherboard
change made such a major difference in the CD-ROM, since no other components
were changed, even the CPU and its clock speed.
The other question I had, out of curiosity, was why I encountered
problems with two discs from the same production and mastering company. I
wanted to learn the reason that my Mitsumi would read the directories of those
"ISO 9660" discs, but would not open or access any of the files on the discs,
giving instead a "drive not ready" error message. The problem with those discs
was even stranger because all of the other discs I've purchased have given no
problems with accessing files.
So far, I've gotten only one response to the questions. One user
suggested the disc file access failure might have come from a failure to
completely load the directory information onto the CD-ROM when it was mastered.
Otherwise, both of my questions appear to be total mysteries.
Kevin,
As I said, in my first message, give up trying to figure it out, Something was
wrong: Bus clocking; a bad slot; a badly setted SIMM where the flakey memory
hit just right (or wrong!); Screwy SETUP parms where you got 1000 wait states
on memory.. If you want to put the system back together, a good technician can
probably find the problem and cause for $50 to $75 an hour (I'm guessing at
rates).
As far as the disc error problem, I assume you have contacted the vendor, and
verified that the version you had wasn't defective and/or had the disc
replaced.
The next thing you might want to do is see if a friends or a cooperative retail
dealers system can read the disc. If it can't that tells us a lot.
Something you may want to try, is to build a floppy disk boot disk.
In it, have everything related to CD-ROM load normally,i.e. NOT HIGH, and NO
EXTENDED MEM MANAGERS!. trash anything not CD-ROM related. Also, if you have
it, kill the /E switch on MSCDEX to disable EMS cache, also kick up the /M
value to 25 or so.
See what happens.
Glen C.
Hi, Erik.
What do you plan on using your CD-ROM for? I have a Texel 3024 (internal
double-speed drive) and Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum that I'm very happy
with. I think both products fit with your "get a good product up front"
philosophy. The Toshiba 3401 tends to be around $100 more than the Texel and
offers better performance.
Getting the sound card at the same time is probably a good idea. Depending on
which sound card you get, you could use the sound card to control the CD-ROM
and save yourself an expansion slot as well as some money on a controller card
(though some folks here have shown that performance will improve if a dedicated
SCSI controller is used). I'm using the PAS 16 to control the Texel and it
works fine for me, but I haven't tried anything else so you could say I don't
know what I'm missing! <g>
There are two files in one of the libs here – I forget which section —
that are definitely worth a download. They're called CDFAQ.TXT and CDROMF.ZIP.
They both have good reference material in them.
I'd also suggest picking up a copy of Computer Shopper just to get a sense of
what the prices are for the drives you might be considering.
Happy shopping!
Evan
Erik:
The decision involves what you might do with the drive and the products you'll
read on it, the kinds of performance you expect and so on. You might try
downloading CDFAQ.TXT and/or CDROMF.TXT in Lib #1 for some background info on
the issues and what to look for.
Best – Rich Bowers